Daniel Pipes, Middle East expert, brings readers up to date on the effect of Obama's bumbling foreign policy towards Israel and the Palestinians. Incompetence would be a mild word to describe administration pronouncements. Pipes writes:
"This says that there is no ban on Arabs buying apartments in the western part of the city and there is no ban on Jews buying or building apartments in the eastern part of the city. This is the
policy of an open city, an undivided city that has no separation according to religion or national affiliation."
Then, his blistering finale: "We cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live and purchase in all parts of Jerusalem. I can only describe to myself what would happen if someone would propose that Jews could not live in certain neighborhoods in New York, London, Paris or Rome. There would certainly be a major international outcry. Accordingly, we cannot agree to such a decree in Jerusalem."
Pipes writes, in conclusion:
From May 27, when the Obama administration began its attack on Israeli "settlements," it has displayed an unexpected naiveté; did this administration really have to relearn for itself the well-known fact that Washington fails when bossing around its main Middle Eastern ally? It then displayed rank incompetence by picking a fight on an issue where an Israeli consensus exists – not over a remote "outpost" but a Jerusalem quarter boasting a Zionist pedigree back to 1891.
How long until Obama understands his error and retreats from it? How much damage will he do in the meantime?